A24 released a movie for kids, and it’s wild

‘Legend of Ochi’ is an imaginative, beautiful throwback

One of the great things about being a kid in the 1980s is that you never knew when an ostensibly family-friendly movie was going to scar you for life. Filmmakers of that era, perhaps still carrying the wounds from the ending of “Old Yeller,” often didn’t feel the need to sugarcoat or soften the emotional highs and lows of their family-friendly movies. As a result, just say the name “Artax” to a Gen-Xer and watch the tears well up in their eyes.

I am definitely not saying that Isaiah Saxon’s “The Legend of Ochi” is anywhere close to that traumatizing, and I’d say it’s the first A24 movie since “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On” that kids 8 and up could watch. It’s that there’s a tinge of wildness to it, an anything-can-happen quality, that will keep audiences young and old mesmerized and enjoyably off-balance. I’m not saying it’s for everybody, but if it’s for you, it’s really, really for you.

The film is set on a fictional island in Carpathia (much of it was shot in Romania), a forbidding landscape of rocky hills and dark forests, a thick layer of mist shrouding everything. It’s beautiful to look at, and Saxon adds analog grain to its digital images to give the film the texture of an ‘80s classic. Even the slightly blurry opening titles look like they were transferred off a VHS copy.

The local sheepherders have been warned against the monkey-like creatures known as Ochi who live in the forest, emerging at night to attack the flock, and perhaps an unlucky human here or there. A man named Maxim is obsessed with tracking down and killing the Ochi, leading bands of young boys on late-night raids into the forest. Maxim is played by Willam Defoe, so you know he is a chill and normal dude.

Just kidding. Defoe plays Maxim with wild-eyed intensity as he puts on golden armor and a helmet to head into battle, growling lines like “We are cursed! We have wickedness!”

Maxim’ daughter Yuri (Helena Zengel of “News of the World”) explores the woods after one of these raids, and finds a baby Ochi caught in one of her father’s bear traps.

The Ochi is created entirely using puppetry, with up to seven performers at once bringing it to life. It’s an absolute wonder, as every movement, every micro-expression of the big-eared, sharp-toothed little creature is brought to life. It’s not only that I believed it could move and make sounds (a high-pitched, trilling noise that Yuri learns to emulate), but I felt like the Ochi could really see out of those wide black eyes.

In the tradition of young movie heroes through time, Yuri hides the Ochi from her father and his lieutenant (Finn Wolfhard of “Stranger Things”) and determines to bring it back to its family. Along the journey, she comes across a mysterious woman in the woods (Emily Watson) with a wooden hand and, more importantly, a flute whose music seems to speak to the Ochi.

“The Legend of Ochi” has a lot of laughs of the smart-kid-outwits-dumb-adults variety, particularly a chase through a Soviet-style grocery store that reminded me of a similar action scene in “Raising Arizona.” All the adult performances are perhaps two sizes too big, which makes them entertaining without tipping the film into parody.

My only complaint is that, at 95 minutes including credits, “Legend of Ochi” feels a little too short. I wanted to spend more time in this world being enchanted by these creatures, both human and otherwise.

“The Legend of Ochi” is now playing in theaters. In Madison, it’s playing at Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, AMC Fitchburg and Flix Brewhouse Madison.